


The Sound of His Name

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [36]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Benzaiten Steel Lives, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Meet the Family, Other, Some Humor, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, and calls his brother regularly go him, just some name on the wrist stuff im not that creative
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: “Super Steel, there’s literally no way you say the ‘yev’ part of it like that,” Ben had teased too many times for his own good. “You stick out the second beat, not the first one.”“Who the hell would say Nureyev like that? I think I’d know how to say my own soulmate’s name or whatever,” Juno would huff in return, time and time again. “It’s got an uh in the middle.”“An uh? Can I get that in a sentence?”“Uh, my brother’s an idiot.”
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 63
Kudos: 260





	The Sound of His Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jaeh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaeh/gifts).



> this one's pretty light!! mostly fluff, pretty soft through and through
> 
> Content warning for nausea mention

Maybe Juno’s face wasn’t the same through a screen, but Benten knew it was better than nothing.

Sometimes the signal didn’t work and Juno would freeze and blur for just a moment too long, and it felt like the distance between them doubled. Sometimes the clock of the ship or the hours of whatever planet Juno and his new coworkers had landed on made calling inconvenient. Most of the time, Ben was just thankful that Juno was getting in contact with him at all.

With the way Juno smiled nowadays, crooked and easy and marred by a new shiner he showed off with a colorful story, then a grin, then a regretful wince at the former, it was easy to forget how much worse he had been before leaving Mars. 

He had spent the two decades since moving out of home fading in and out of the periphery of Ben’s life like faint, disjointed music poking its head out through a gray fog of static. When he did show up, he didn’t linger for long, likely because of how hard it was to hide just how bad he was doing from someone who had been at his side since before either one of them was born.

A part of Ben worried that the reason Juno was so much more open with him now was because the confines of a camera made hiding his troubles so much easier. However, he had scoured his mouth for strange twitches and his eye for nervous motion and found nothing of concern. After enough hours on the phone trying to interrogate his brother as subtly as possible, Benten was fairly sure he could put his worries away. That didn’t necessarily mean he would.

When Juno’s face popped up on the screen that evening, it did so with a smile.

“Super Steel!” Benten greeted.

“I’m forty, Ben,” Juno snorted.

“Does that look like it’s gonna stop me?” Benzaiten shot back, though it wasn’t without his own grin and laugh as he leaned back against his couch and stretched. “You’re off saving the galaxy or whatever. Why not call you Super Steel?”

“Because you’re goddamn embarrassing, that’s why,” Juno huffed.

He chuckled, his smile lazing over his face for longer than intended. It was good to see Juno complaining about something that wasn’t too life or death for once, and it was certainly good to see some humor behind what once would have been a thinly veiled lash.

Benten had to admit, Juno looked good.

Maybe it was just the lighting in whatever new setting he had called from, but Ben wasn’t sure a location that looked like a combination of a barfing closet and a bombed-out dumpster was doing him any favors. However, the lines of his cheeks were a little less gaunt, and even if Benten could only see one of his eyes, the ring underneath was a little gentler than usual.

“It’s just good to see you again,” Benten returned in earnest, then grinned as he tacked on the nickname at the end. “Super Steel.”

“Shut up,” Juno groaned. “Whatever.”

“So how's life about the Carte Blanche?” Ben pressed. “Steal anything fun lately?”

“Nothing I’m supposed to tell you about.”

Benten rolled his eyes.

“I’m your brother, Super Steel,” he pretended to huff in a mockery of his twin that Juno certainly didn’t miss, for he let out a huff of his own and visibly had to hold himself back from a retort. “Your own flesh and blood. The only other guy in the galaxy with the same DNA as you. Your oldest friend, womb to tomb.”

“Yeah, and I’m a—”

“Space pirate?”

“I told you not to call it that,” Juno snorted, though his teasing expression softened after a moment. “So how are the kids? I almost miss having random eight year olds running up to me in grocery stores and hugging my knees.”

“I dunno if they get more energetic every year or if I’m just getting older. I think it’s a little bit of both,” Ben chuckled. “And don’t be a jerk about free hugs. They’re sweet kids, they just can’t see all the way up to your face and see the Juno-certified scowl you’ve been working on since middle school.”

“It’s why I’ve gotta look so goddamn sad all the time,” Juno joked. “So either they realize I’m not ‘Mister Benzaiten’ or if they don’t, they just think you’re having a hell of a day and need some space.”

“If you’re trying to look sad now, I’ve gotta say, I don’t think you’re doing a very good job at it,” Ben smiled.

Juno paused, his mouth falling ajar for a moment before he remembered to close it. Whatever jest had laid in his voice moments before had crumpled into something sweet and soft and genuine that Benten was almost certain he hadn’t heard in years. Regardless of the bare vulnerability of the sound, the smile lines at the sides of Juno’s mouth did not fade, nor did the gentle, far-off look in his eye flicker out.

“I guess I’m out of practice, huh?”

“Something good happen I haven’t heard about?” Ben pressed.

“Well, I—”

Juno might have finished his sentence, but Benten didn’t hear a word of it. Juno reached a hand up to itch right above his ear, that wistful look still on his face. Despite what should have been a pleasant scene, Benten felt something cold and rock solid turn over in his stomach at the sight of Juno’s wrist.

Where there should have been a name mirroring a neatly printed tattoo, an obvious smudge of makeup lay instead.

Peter Nureyev, whoever the bastard was, had been the subject of a good portion of his fights with Juno throughout his life. When they were younger, they had been about as lighthearted as a debate between siblings could manage to be.

“Super Steel, there’s literally no way you say the ‘yev’ part of it like that,” Ben had teased too many times for his own good. “You stick out the second beat, not the first one.”

Juno would always hold his wrist close to his chest and glare, and sometimes, if he was feeling particularly like starting a fight, he would stick out his tongue or flash a rude gesture he had learned from Sasha.

“Who the hell would say Nureyev like that? I think I’d know how to say my own soulmate’s name or whatever,” Juno would huff in return, time and time again. “It’s got an uh in the middle.”

“An uh? Can I get that in a sentence?”

“Uh, my brother’s an idiot.”

Benten wished the fights had remained that simple. When they were younger, their arguments over the name and the pronunciation were so overdone that they had morphed into their own inside jokes.

Ben would tease Juno about what face he would make when he finally met this guy and figured out that he’d been saying his name wrong for his entire life, while Juno would elbow Ben between the ribs and ask him how he’d feel when he showed up to the wedding and had to write all his jokes about the matter out of his best man speech when he found out Juno had been right all along.

Like most parts of getting older, things became a lot less simple with time, and nine times out of ten, that meant getting worse.

Their arguments morphed from pronunciation to the heavy wristbands and smears of makeup over the mark as Juno tried to convince him that the whole dumb thing was made up anyway, and that if he had a chance in hell at finding someone supposed to make him happy all the time, he sure wouldn’t find them in Hyperion City. When the name came up, the pronunciation joke never followed, and if any mention shot past either of their lips, it was burning for spite for the other.

Ben knew it was a fight he couldn’t win. He was pretty sure Juno knew it too. Ben couldn’t convince Juno that he deserved to pursue nice things for himself. Juno couldn’t convince Ben that he was happy as he was.

It became easier not to talk to one another at all, and after a while, they didn’t.

Ben swallowed. He considered, for a moment, mentioning the smear of makeup across his brother’s wrist. He spent much longer considering that if the call ended now and Juno found himself crossed with a particularly dangerous job, he might never see his brother again.

He managed to shut his mouth, though not without a short draft of something a little too tentative and a little too apologetic to be confrontational forming in his mouth.

“Ransom?” Juno paused halfway through his sentence, his smile falling as his attention was pulled elsewhere.

“My love, is everything alright?”

Juno glared down at the buttons on his comms.

“Shit, where’s the mute—”

“Don’t mind me, Super Steel,” Ben tried to laugh. “I won’t listen in on any of your super secret thief conversations.”

“Is that your-”

“My idiot brother,” Juno snorted.

“Ah!” Ransom, or whoever Juno had traded the mark on his wrist for, called from somewhere behind the phone. “My sincerest apologies, Benzaiten, I’ll take my leave immediately.”

“Get over here and say hi,” Juno huffed.

Ben waited for a response, but there was none, just a gentle, friendly sigh that sounded like someone off camera softening and strolling over. Before he could listen for any more clues, however, the camera jostled as someone else climbed onto what was clearly a bed under the mountain of laundry on which Juno had been leaning back. When Ransom righted himself, he did so with an arm around Juno’s shoulders and a million dollar smile on his lips.

“You must be this brother I’ve heard so very much about,” Ransom beamed, his tone so genial that Juno rolled his eyes.

“Yep, that’s me,” Ben returned as evenly as he could.

He wanted to trust this Ransom guy, but after seeing the smudge on Juno’s wrist and meeting enough shitty partners with different names to write a list all the way up to Juno’s elbow, he knew better than to give into that salesman’s smile immediately.

“Why, Juno, he’s your spitting image,” Ransom chuckled.

“That’s how twins work, genius,” Juno snorted.

Ransom opened his mouth to argue, but spent a moment too long giving Juno a half affectionate, half offended look that Juno seemed to find the sweetest thing in the world, even if it was carved upon the face of a gentleman who looked like a knife personified.

When he took a moment too long to answer, Juno leaned up and kissed the mock-offense from his lips.

As someone who cared for Juno, he couldn’t help but take note of the way Juno’s wrists locked around the back of Ransom’s neck comfortably, a smile playing on his lips and nearly pulling him out of the kiss with its tenacity. Ransom, on the other hand, all but melted into him, his glare dissipating as well. It didn’t look anything like the interactions Benten had seen with Juno’s former partners, and though he supposed they set a low bar, he couldn’t ignore how comfortable the two seemed to be together.

As Juno’s brother, Benten made a very loud, very pointed, and very disgusted noise.

“Juno,” Ransom began sternly, though a laugh threatened to break through his words.

“Mhm?” Juno tried to murmur against his lips again, though Ransom placed his hands on both of Juno’s shoulders to hold him back from another kiss while Juno glared.

“Think of your brother, my love.”

“Yeah, I think I’m with boytoy on this one,” Ben called from the comms.

Ransom turned to the screen with a look so comically disgusted that Benten had to stifle a snort.

“Beg pardon?”

“Boytoy,” Juno repeated into his ear, louder this time.

“Dear Lord, you two really are identical,” Ransom sniffed, though the offense didn’t last for long, for his sneer repurposed itself into a smile and his lips pressed a brief kiss into Juno’s forehead before he disappeared from view again. “I’ll leave you to your conversation, my dear detective. Benten, it was a pleasure to meet you.”

Ben opened his mouth to reply, closing it at the sound of a door sliding shut.

“Is that—”

“Partner,” Juno cut him off before he could suggest anything more embarrassing. “That’s the mountain I’m on right now. I was looking for something in his quarters and fell asleep and didn’t get back to ours until it was too late.”

“Ours?”

Juno swallowed, nodding along stiffly. As much as the protective streak in Benten wanted to point his finger at this as a sign of discomfort in a relationship, he had known Juno for far too long to pretend this wasn’t just another symptom of his emotional constipation.

“Well, it was mine, but we were spending so much time in there together anyway, and he’s always travelled in the past, so he’s still figuring out the whole living in one place thing, which means that his room’s a mess, but that stresses him out, so—” Juno cleared his throat. “Ours.”

“And you’re happy?”

“Ben, you don’t have to grill me on—”

“I’m not grilling you, Super Steel. I just wanna know,” Ben sighed. “I don’t wanna have this fight again, but I noticed you didn’t call him any name I’d heard before.”

Juno opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, though after a moment, it fell into a too-broad beam instead of a grimace.

“Super Steel?”

“Ben, I’ve gotta tell you something that we have to keep between the two of us, okay?” Juno started slowly, the same inexplicable smile woven into his face.

“Yeah?”

“First of all, Ransom’s an alias,” he started.

“Alias for what?”

Juno swallowed, his smile dissipating into a thoughtful look.

“I—” he paused to sigh. “You know what it is, I just don’t wanna just say it. It’s a safety thing and all that. Not even the whole crew knows.”

“Okay,” Ben returned slowly. “What’s it rhyme with?”

Juno groaned.

“That’s the problem. The second thing I was going to tell you was that you were right.”

Benten raised an eyebrow while Juno’s face fell into his hands with a pointed grumble.

“The stress is on the second syllable.”

**Author's Note:**

> man i love these goobers so much
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill kiss ur mom
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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